Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Monday April 28, 2008 @10:50AM
from the i-can't-even-juggle-two-satellites dept.

freakxx writes "India sets a world record after launching 10 satellites in one go using its workhorse, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). All the satellites were put into their respective orbits successfully. It was the core-alone version of the launch vehicle weighing 230 tonnes with a payload of 824 kg in total. Two of the satellites were Indian satellites, while the rest were from different countries. By this launch, the ISRO has proven its credibility and it is going to boost India's image in the attractive multi-billion commercial market of satellite launches. This was the 12th successful launch of the PSLV."

On the good side, we don't have to worry about the US military weaponizing space, since the complete ineptitude of conservative ideology will soon leave the US without a means of even getting into space, or the money to put anything there.

I don't know what you're talking about, there aren't any fiscal conservatives in the halls of power anymore. All that are left these days are borrow-and-spend politicians (Republicans have proven to be experts at this, but the Dems aren't exactly falling all over themselves trying to raise taxes or cut spending either).But yah, no one in Washington is even remotely interested in spending money putting much of anything into space, so any superiority we may have left in regards to space travel is pretty much

Our undoing will not be because of fiscal conservatism. I consider myself a libertarian war monger. I'd vote for Ron Paul if he was only pro war. That being said I do acknowledge that my military spending beliefs are not fiscally conservative.

I believe all people should be able to defend themselves, therefore right to bear arms. That in itself is quite libertarian. I believe that nations should be allowed to defend themselves from foreign opposing forces. Even anarchist philosophy supports that, with the caveat that once they make us all anarchists we stop fighting wars. I believe in the ability to go on the offensive against foreigners if necessary. I don't believe this is a far departure from libertarian philosophy.

I dunno, I saw a committee meeting about the ISS on CSPAN*, and they looked more than happy to throw more money at it. Not that I mind; if we're going to hemorrhage money, I think I'd prefer it to go to orbit of all places. The witnesses stressed the point that there was a lot of worthy research that was just waiting to be done, and it all depended on having a means of getting there now that we're losing the shuttles. I can't argue against that, but it was interesting how no one with a contesting view point

1. India has nukes. (It also sits on huge reserves of Thorium and has breeder reactors, so it can transform them to uranium or eventually plutonium, as needed.)

2. If you can put an object in orbit, you can make it come down wherever you want it to come down. Or use a smaller rocket and/or a heavier load to make them go ballistic instead of orbitting at all. (For reference, the USSR's space program started the other way around. Someone realized that they had build a rocket so powerful to haul nukes, that it could put a small-ish object in orbit.) Rockets are that interchangeable purpose.

3. Inclined/polar orbits? Always good to have for a nuke, if nothing else, to hit a location that's not near the equator. Plus you might want to go extremely inclined to minimize flight time and thus warning time (I think both the USA and the USSR had most of their nukes aimed at each other over the arctic), or to lob them over international waters and avoid pissing off everyone else in their path.

As a bonus: once you can do polar orbits and big payloads, you can use spy sats.

Now I'm not saying India is necessarily aiming to become an ICBM power. Maybe, maybe not. And they're probably not yet ready to willy-wave internationally about it, in any case. But I'm saying I wouldn't be the least surprised if that was at least one factor in funding that space program.

I still remember seeing the news on TV when they had built their first nuke, and the general euphoria. It was waay back, while they were even poorer than today. Arguably that money could have been better invested in industrializing a little faster. But there were people cheering in the streets that they now have a big destructive weapon. I can see a lot of political capital in the implicit "and now we can lob it at anyone too!" message.

Now I'm not singling India out there. I think they're just... humans, like everyone else. And it's a sad thing that we'd rather have a big stick to threaten the neighbours with, than an extra slice of bread.

Not all countries' space programs are about war and weapons. some are less paranoid.

The 690kg CARTOSAT and the 83kg IMS-1 are both remote sensing satellites, equipped with panchromatic (B&W) and Spectral cameras to image earth at visible and infrared frequencies. Many, if not all, indian satellites are for remote sensing/meteorological - because in a country where agriculture is the primary industry, it is paramount to track the movement of rainfall, particularly the seasonal monsoons. These weather predictions are vital for farmers to ensure a good harvest. A good harvest leads to lower food prices - in effect, this launch has a very close relationship to feeding India's poor, contrary to many trolls here.
The focus of India's space program has, thankfully, been always about peaceful purposes while making money on the side by providing a cheap option for launching amateur radio/science project satellites built by students and universities (such as the other 8 in this launch). More info about the launch here [isro.org].

As an interesting side note, the PSLV will also be used for Chandrayan-1, India's first mission to moon.

Here's a funny thought:
1. India has nukes. (It also sits on huge reserves of Thorium and has breeder reactors, so it can transform them to uranium or eventually plutonium, as needed.)

India also has uranium/plutonium for enough nukes. So why bother with the thorium route.
Anyway, we are preserving our supply for more *interesting* applications and shopping around for an independent source of uranium for power, courtesy the nuke deal.

2. If you can put an object in orbit, you can make it come down wherever you want it to come down. Or use a smaller rocket and/or a heavier load to make them go ballistic instead of orbitting at all. (For reference, the USSR's space program started the other way around. Someone realized that they had build a rocket so powerful to haul nukes, that it could put a small-ish object in orbit.) Rockets are that interchangeable purpose.

India has a few ballistic missiles... The Agni series is the most prominent of the lot. I believe we are testing 5K range next year. (Beijing at last...) not quite the US yet, but still...
Then there is the Surya. This one is almost mythical, but give it

India also has uranium/plutonium for enough nukes. So why bother with the thorium route

Good point, especially since Australia is happy to sell India and a lot of other places as much uranium as is desired.

Offtopic even furthur but interesting since thorium was mentioned - the Indian accelerated thorium reactor idea looks like it could deliver most of the old civilian nuclear promises and gets around the fuel quality problems you have if there is high demand for uranium. It's even possible to add other fue

India's guided missile program (Agni) is known to borrow heavily from it's civilian space program - this is true.

However, it's important to note India's proven track record as a non-agressor, which is especially remarkable when you consider that its surrounded by hostile parties in one way or the other.

India's first nuke test was in 1972 [wikipedia.org]. That's 36 years of indigenous nuke capability. In that time, they have been in a constant state of tension with Pakistan (and gone to war once - Kargil), had a prime minister (Rajiv Gandhi) asassinated by the LTTE (Sri Lankan militants), have parts of Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh (another state of India) occupied by China, have ULFA seperatists operating in Assam (a north east state of India), and have constant tensions at their border with Burma and Bangladesh.

Not once in this time has India used it's military in anything other than a defensive role. If India's neighbours (and indeed the rest of the world, and especially the US) showed that much restraint, the world would be a much better place.

...and this is precisely the self-laudatory flag-waving we-can-do-no-wrong nationalism that makes you dangerous.

This makes Indians dangerous? Being proud of a track record of non-aggression?

What about the US attacking Iraq without provocation, killing 100,000s of them, displacing them by the millions, and reducing their country to rubble? And then Clinton and McCain beating their chests with self-laudatory flag-waving we-can-do-no-wrong nationalism saying "we have given the Iraqis the wonderful gift of freedom, and now it's time for them to play a bigger role in securing their country?" Get off your high horse dude

I'll tell you why becoming an ICBM power is not on the agenda (I'm Indian, btw).The biggest nuclear threat we as Indians face are from the two neighbors- Pakistan and China (the latter somewhat less so).

India has pretty cordial diplomatic relations with the rest of the world-possibly due to its history of the non aligned movement in the 60s, where it maintained friendly relations with both Western and Eastern bloc powers.

*IF* we wanted to nuke our neighbors, ICBMs would be total overkill. The Agni III [wikipedia.org] miss

I really cannot imagine that today any nation (other than rogue nations) really going head to head with their neighbours and even the rogues are very wary. I mean, with media and satellite coverage, the news would spread the world over before ur first foot soldier makes their first move. That said, is it really necessary to say, "Look, we have nukes. Don't come near us" or is that old world mentality? As GP said, it might be best to have invested time and money into so many other things to make the cou

It may be marked as funny, but I find it fairly true that India is definitely a country where the "more-in-less" concept seems to fit. I have a room for rent in my condo, and recently got an email from an family that is moving here and wanted to rent my room (not a small room, but it's still only a single room in a 3bdrm/1bthrm condo) for the parents and their child. When it comes to space and comfort VS saving bucks, the common mentality seems to go with the latter.

If you could understand what they say in Japanese, it would be more fun. Someone talks to the pushers, '"It must be hard to do this everyday". And the pushers say "OK now, puuuuussh!" "hey a leg is sticking out!"

It's funny you said that. When I read the headline, I imagined a giant trebuchet flinging the satellites into their respective positions like a bucket of rocks. Now mine isn't as Non-PC as yours, but its the same concept.

Thanks; I guess it was "non-PC", it sure didn't get modded up. I'm not sure what insult it is to base a dumb joke on the simple fact that India has a very high population, but insult it was, I guess - live and learn.

Someone should tell the European Union about this way of launching satellites... then the politicians might stop wasting vast amounts of European taxpayers money on their own vastly over-budget but completely worthless GPS system, using the tracking of road drivers as one excuse for it's existence.

Politicians might stop wasting vast amounts of European taxpayers money on their own vastly over-budget but completely worthless GPS system

From Wikipedia:

Galileo is intended to provide more precise measurements to all users than available through GPS or GLONASS, better positioning services at high latitudes and an independent positioning system upon which European nations can rely even in times of war or political disagreement.

It might be redundant for many positioning applications, but completely worthless...?

According to the same source, the EU is spending 3.4 billion Euros on this. This is just half of what we're spending on "administration" this year, and considering the other truly worthless crap we are spending money on, having our own GPS system is a pretty good goal in comparison.

Hmm, well India is now a partner in GLONASS so there will soon be a total of three global positioning networks. Assuming they all use different frequencies a smart device should be able to do much quicker and much more accurate atmosphere corrections. I can't imagine that being a bad thing =)

Er, SSO is LEO. According to Wikipedia, SSO is usually at an altitude of 600-800km, and LEO is defined as any orbit between 160km and 2000km. ISS is only at an altitude of 350 km. If you're in any kind of stable orbit (i.e. above the atmosphere), you're in LEO or higher.

Also, considering the size of a Cubesat (1 kg, 0.1 cubic meter), you could launch several hundred on any launch vehicle.

Of one day looking up and really noticing that the available amounts of sunlight has been diminishing due to the rampant expansion of tracking and communications satellites being pushed into orbit by all the nations of the earth.

Then we begin to see the outcome as diminished crops, rampant expansion of the polar ice belts, strange drops in cancer rates from excessive sunlight exposure in bikini clad Caucasian women;... And some strange little guy on the global news service saying something about "the sky is falling; the sky is falling!"...

...one day looking up and really noticing that the available amounts of sunlight has been diminishing due to the rampant expansion of tracking and communications satellites being pushed into orbit by all the nations of the earth.

But as an Indian, I am not so sure about the last item. Theoretically, yes, we are a democratic union of states. Practically, in every election, you will have hard time deciding which candidate has less murders, rapes and extortion changes against his/her name - that too assuming that your name is in the voters' lists, and you will actually be able to vote.

Democracy lives only in the memory. The country has gone to pigs. All the development and pr

Oh please. The false drama is too much to bear. The shuttle has had 121 launches total. We lost 2 of them. That's a 98% success rate. Despite the shuttle loses being bad PR and a very sad event, the program as a whole has been hugely successful.

Not to mention that the first loss was completely avoidable if they had just listened to their technical advisor's! The shuttle program was designed with a loss rate of 1 in 100 launches and if it wasn't for the stupid PHB's we would be at 20% better than that. The follow up is designed with a loss rate of 1 in 1000 launches, but at a reduced technical capability.

In order to shorten development time and test and verification procedures, the structural design of Delfi-C3 is based on the increasingly popular CubeSat standard, developed by California Polytechnic State University (CalPoly) and Stanford University for exactly this purpose. A standard (1U) CubeSat is a cube with sides of 10 cm and a

With no replacement yet in sight for its Shuttles, which are scheduled to be retired in 2010.

How terribly sad. Thanks, George Bush.

But, IIRC, George promised us that we'd be putting a man on Mars. Just like his exit strategy, he has a solid plan - He's just waiting on his last day in office to surprise us with it. Have a little faith.

There's nothing terribly special about this sort of launch. The PSLV is a fairly unremarkable vehicle, and there have been launches that have included more than 10 [satnews.com] satellites in the past.

America did indeed even participate in the Russian launch listed above.

This launch also has virtually nothing to do with the Shuttle, which is primarily a manned crew vehicle. Retiring the shuttle is probably a good decision, given that it failed to fulfill its original design goals of being safe, cheap, and easily reusab

Name one other space vehicle that comes anywhere close to those statistics. It's not the Soyuz where the shuttles carry twice the personnel, many times the payload, and still have some 30% more launches.

You realize that not all of India lives in poverty right? When foreign nations look at US news, they see guns in schools and that becomes their image of the US. When people travel to India/watch the news, they travel to rural areas to look at what life is like. They don't remember the urban cities, they remember the poor citizens walking back and forth from wells to get water.

Ignorance is another reputation the US has. Stop ruining our image, educate yourself before you start stating vacuous comments.

I just see this coming up on every forum. What people overlook is that India's population >> EUs population, can Europe concieve any (democratic)system working on that scale? "Assuming" the benefits of the space program are restricted to the 'elite' 10%, that number is much greater then the population of France/germany or any other european country.

Latency is horrible to satellites and bandwidth is limited by device transmit power. A much better idea is very high altitude balloons. Use solar power to keep the balloon within tolerance and you have basically solved both problems while having a launch cost a fraction of what even a small comm satellite costs.

Yet we don't because it is not so PC to remove the many reasons for that hunger. We also do not have the stomach for it (no pun intended) because it would cost us lives to remove the leadership that routinely starves their own populations.

India is coming forward rapidly, by advancing space science they advance all their sciences. They also give their people something to strive for - something they can show children that India is and what they can become. Let alone the fact that satellites provide better weather monitoring , can track crops and movement of animals. The possibilities of helping their own are a hundredfold, let alone what they can do for others.

Oh, before you troll India again I must ask, did you buy food out this week? If so, why? There are lots of poor people who could have used it in rice to feed a family... so why didn't you help? Oh, yeah, thats because its easier to be a forum troll and blame others for not doing instead of doing yourself.

How do you know what I did and what I did not this week to help those people?I like./...the epitome of justice, the American way. You get modded 5, insightful, because you reversed the question and asked me what I've done for the poor, while I ask the same question not to you, but to those people that throw their money away for 'space' (as if a few 100 km above the Earth's surface is actually space), and I get modded troll, -1.

Implementing and improving satellite technology will not result directly to improving the economy and the social state of the poor people, for the simple reasons that the benefits are not distributed to the people. The benefits go to the private corporations that are behind the technologies, the government that gets paid for launching satellites and those that use the satellites. The common folks have nothing to gain from it, even if the weather is monitored and crops are improved.Anything else out of yer a

But what about those 1 billion people (ok, number out of ass, but you get the point) that are starving to death and live in horrible conditions?

1. 1 billion is nearly the entire population of the country (1.12 billion est.)2. What better way to improve living conditions than to become a hub for space technology?3. I think you may be under some misconceptions about the state of Indian rural life as compared to, for example, the state of Mississippi.

If you're not sure that you know what you're talking about, perhaps you should do some research [wikipedia.org]. If you had, you'd be able to say something like:

India has twice the poverty rate of, for example, the U.S., though that has dropped substantially since their independence and is widely seen as a potential model for a rapid exit from third-world status for other nations.

But what about those 1 billion people (ok, number out of ass, but you get the point) that are starving to death and live in horrible conditions?

1) Commercial launches such as these pay for themselves and help defray the total cost of the India space programme.
2) High tech stuff like this creates jobs for academics and skilled workers, who'll be part of India's growing middle class. I believe that creating wealth top-down, by having wealth trickle down from an affluent and productive middle class to the poor, works a hell of a lot better than forever "giving that man a fish to eat".

2) High tech stuff like this creates jobs for academics and skilled workers, who'll be part of India's growing middle class. I believe that creating wealth top-down, by having wealth trickle down from an affluent and productive middle class to the poor, works a hell of a lot better than forever "giving that man a fish to eat".

Good point!I can't really think of anytime in history where wealth has been built from the bottom up!

I think this is an argument similar to those put forward by some Americans against NASA's space programme. And I think the reply to both is the same: The respective Governments are not wasting the entire nation's wealth in the development of space technology and exploration - they do that elsewhere!

Stop whining... everytime someone (esp India) does something worthwhile, all of a sudden poverty is visible and no other accomplishments. Have you done home work on the % of people who live below poverty line in US of A ? Get a grip and stop the rant, for once admire something, even if it is for few seconds.

But what about those 1 billion people (ok, number out of ass, but you get the point) that are starving to death and live in horrible conditions?

I'm always amazed by this kind of arrogance towards developing nations. This kind of comment is seen any time there's a post about the OLPC project, for example.

Do you really think it would be productive if the government of India spent its entire time trying to directly alleviate hunger and poverty? Don't you think that encouraging industries that provide high-paying jobs is a good part of a long-term strategy to improve people's lives?

More to the point, did it never occur to you as a (presumably) well-educated, technically-inclined person that education, science and technology were part of the solutions to the developing world's problems, not just a distraction?

I am an Indian. I live in New Delhi.
Having a a fair amount of exposure to the business world (2 decades), I have experienced more than my share of arrogance and well, I also have experienced the brilliance of the people from US and Europe.
Things are changing, attitudes to Indians are becoming a little more respectful (though we tend to exasperate a lot of people with our casual attitude at times...)
India had made immense investments in education, science, technology, poverty alleviation schemes and

No, no and no. Economic development is the result of the distribution of wealth, not the result of advanced technological programs. I am all for space exploration and I back NASA and ESA up, because they have solved a big percentage of the problems of their people (although both USA and Europe are in decline)...but India? there is a large percentage of the population that still live in great poverty. Instead of throwing the money to space, they could have improved the social infrastructure, build better roa

But what about those 1 billion people (ok, number out of ass, but you get the point) that are starving to death and live in horrible conditions?

Every time I read a comment like this, I don't know what to say.

Do you know what is the single biggest thing that has helped poor farmers all across India? Please visit http://www.echoupal.com/ [echoupal.com]

It is a website for small farmers. Even for those farmers who don't have Internet, there are kiosks in villages where volunteers explain them and help them use the website.

Using this, the farmers network and help each other solve problems. Single biggest benefit of this has been spotting and eliminating corrupt middlemen who give unfairly low price to farmers and sell it for high price to traders. This one advantage is worth entire effort behind this initiative.

Unfortunately Western media does not find these stories interesting. They love to show poor hungry children begging for food. Then they get to portray the Western world as the noble minded donor.

The truth is even poor people want to work hard and improve their lifestyle. Information technology, Internet, communication infrastructure, is what will give them a chance. It is absolutely right thing if a poor country with a billion hungry people launches satellites. It is better than a rich country launching wars.

The rooting out of middlemen is the job of the government, it should not be the job of the people. In an organized society, it's the State that creates and enforces the laws about competitive practices and monopolies. What you say is like if Microsoft's anti-competitive practices where hunted by the people themselves and not the authorities.The reason such cases exist in India and in other countries (middlemen that buy products in very low prices and sell them in very high practices) is because of the lack

I see your point, but surely you realize that postponing progress will not cure any problems in India or anywhere else. If we in the US had put our space program off until all our citizens were fed, we'd still be on the ground. Ditto everyone else in space. If you feel badly about world hunger, I could suggest a few nice charities you could give to...

Feed 1 billion people for a day, they will hunger tomorrow. Teach them techs, let them take over comp-sci, techs, and many other sector, and you will be the one starving tomorrow, while they will be starving less, and for more than a day.

âoeFirst they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.â

I guess India's up to step 2.

Just remember, the technological curve that India's on is a lot sharper than the one the US has had, and the last 8 years of stunting science in the US by the current administration is only going to hurt long-term.

Funny you didn't think that when the white boys (the Russians and us) thought this up in 1966.I did... I was hoping that threat was done with.

Does every technological advancement by others have to be thought through the prism of a threat?If that technological advancement is a weapon it probably should be. It's not like they accidently invented nuclear missles while trying to perfect nuclear power.

But that's not the point... mutually assured destruction and proportionate response doesn't work against a natio